A Malawian Activist’s Mission to Connect with Americans About Climate Change
WOODSTOCK, VT … On Saturday, February 12, the Woodstock Vermont Film Series & The Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival Tour will partner to present “The Ants & the Grasshopper,” in the Billings Farm & Museum Theater. This poignant documentary, directed by Raj Patel and Zak Piper, follows Anita Chitaya, a Malawian activist on a mission, traveling across America to meet farmers and community leaders to talk about the effects of climate change worlds away.
Anita Chitaya has a gift; she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real.
Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, Anita meets climate skeptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions shaping the US, from the rural-urban divide to schisms of race, class and gender, to the thinking that allows Americans to believe they live on a different planet from everyone else. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognize, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.
“A call to care – about each other and for each other – and to acknowledge the interconnectivity that links us all, for better or worse, across an imperiled world.” ~ London Guardian
The films will screen at 3pm and 5:30pm, Saturday, February 12 in the Billings Farm & Museum Theater. Reservations are strongly recommended as seating is limited. Masks and proof of vaccination are required. Purchase tickets and provide proof of vaccination in advance online at billingsfarm.org/filmseries or by phone at 802-457-5303 before noon on Friday. Tickets may be available for purchase at the Ticket Desk on the day of the film if seating allows.
Showing as part of the 12th Annual Woodstock Vermont Film Series, these films reflect Billings Farm & Museum’s vision to share place-based stories of people near and far, to engage our audiences, and to inspire conversations that increase connections with each other and our world.
The Woodstock Vermont Film Series is curated and directed by award-winning filmmaker Jay Craven, produced by the Billings Farm & Museum, with generous support from local sponsors. We gratefully acknowledge our lead sponsors: D. R. Horne & Company and the Woodstock Inn & Resort, as well as Ellaway Property Services, Inc.
